Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass were the first books I read to myself, I am married to an Alice, and the officiant at our wedding (a conjurer who wore Templar robes!) recited Jabberwocky in lieu of a sermon, so you could say that I like this poem: Link.

]]>

It's a thank-you to the donors who took Patrick Rothfuss's Worldbuilders charity over the $600K mark.

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass were the first books I read to myself, I am married to an Alice, and the officiant at our wedding (a conjurer who wore Templar robes!) recited Jabberwocky in lieu of a sermon, so you could say that I like this poem: Link.
]]>

http://boingboing.net/2014/12/11/neil-gaiman-reads-jabberwocky.html/feed0Limited edition vinyl: John Perry Barlow reads "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace"http://boingboing.net/2014/12/08/limited-edition-vinyl-john-pe.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/12/08/limited-edition-vinyl-john-pe.html#commentsMon, 08 Dec 2014 16:00:51 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=351952A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace has stirred hearts since he penned it in 1996 -- and now you can own a beautiful recording Barlow reading it in his wonderful, gravelly voice.]]>
EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow's visionary 1996 text A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace has stirred hearts since he penned it in 1996 -- and now you can own a beautiful recording Barlow reading it in his wonderful, gravelly voice.

The limited-edition 180g vinyl edition from the Department of Records is a beautiful package, in a black-on-black sleeve with an embossed title, a high-quality printing of the Declaration inside, and the B-side sports a version backed by an original score from Drazen Boznjak, and an instrumental-only version of that score.

All three recordings are free, CC-licensed downloads, of course.

At the time the Manifesto was written, Barlow had already written extensively on the Internet and its social and legal phenomena, as well as being a founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF.org along with fellow digital rights activists John Gilmore and Mitch Kapor. "The Economy of Ideas", the classic essay he published on digital copyright in March 1994 for Wired magazine (he has been on the masthead since Wired was founded), which is taught in many law schools also made allusions to some of the ideas he would write about in his Declaration. The manifesto was written primarily in response to the passing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (which was later overturned) in the United States which the EFF saw as a threat to the independence of Cyberspace and was published online on February 8TH, 1996 from Davos, Switzerland while he was attending The World Economic Forum.
Barlow is a fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and spends the majority of his time on the road, lecturing and consulting civil rights, freedom of speech, the Internet and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, of which he serves as vice­chairman of their board of directors. He is also on the board of directors for Freedom of the Press Foundation along with Daniel Ellsberg, Laura Poitras and others. Barlow is currently the only person to be inducted into both The Internet Hall of Fame and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

http://boingboing.net/2014/12/08/limited-edition-vinyl-john-pe.html/feed0*Copyright Redux*http://boingboing.net/2014/10/30/copyright-redux.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/10/30/copyright-redux.html#commentsThu, 30 Oct 2014 17:00:43 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=341925William Carleton, who writes that "the form itself, where the same six words are repeated in each
stanza, lends itself to the subject of copying and transformative use."]]>

The song had to be remixed.
Something to do with the way that soundboards
Differ today than when the first copy
Was captured back in the 1960s.
An engineer our executives trust
Always says, "grab it in the studio

The first time - the studio
Sessions are trouble enough to remix."
He'll understand the conundrum, I trust.
We weren't the ones who fucked with the soundboards.
Hippies, not from the 1960s,
Find their millennial ways to copy

As quick as chips can copy
Bits to build to bytes in a studio.
Oh, so remote seem the 1960s.
Every auteur since waits to be remixed,
Remastered and re-released. You sound bored
By the bookkeeping but money's in trust

Because of it. Antitrust
Might have rescued these pirates who copy,
Covered them safely like rugs on sound boards.
Thankfully there's only one studio
Left, laws of all nations have been remixed,
And sold are the anthems of the 1960s.

Forget the 1960s.
Don't we again have musicians we trust?
Hollywood goons nabbed one for her remix,
Served the suit and charged her for her copy.
House foreclosed, she's rented a studio.
We're pulling data now from her soundboards.

Yes, she's messing with soundboards,
Let it be; this ain't the 1960s:
Carry laptop, the world's anyone's studio.
Though government's the lone partner to trust
With the codes for decrypting the copy.
Soon, all will turn. Be ready to remix.

We should license the soundboards, lest we be remixed
And shown the door to the studio. The content's in trust
- From the 1960s. I'll lend you my copy.

http://boingboing.net/2014/10/30/copyright-redux.html/feed0Animated, candid Bukowski interviewshttp://boingboing.net/2014/08/15/animated-candid-bukowski-inte.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/08/15/animated-candid-bukowski-inte.html#commentsSat, 16 Aug 2014 03:00:56 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=324949
David sends us this video featuring "Candid conversations between writer Charles Bukowski, his wife, and his producer took place in Bukowski's home during the recording session for his classic Run With the Hunted in 1993.
Here the outtakes are brought to life."

David sends us this video featuring "Candid conversations between writer Charles Bukowski, his wife, and his producer took place in Bukowski's home during the recording session for his classic Run With the Hunted in 1993.
Here the outtakes are brought to life."

Inside this plain covered, weathered old paperback is something that I think might approach late sixties period poetry perfection. I was shocked into a state of joyful awe when I first read The Mason Williams Reading Matter.

]]>

Inside this plain covered, weathered old paperback is something that I think might approach late sixties period poetry perfection. I was shocked into a state of joyful awe when I first read The Mason Williams Reading Matter.

This is a stream-of-consciousness tour de force. Doodles, photographs, poems, anecdotes, short stories and odd items coat the pages of this mind-bendingly awesome work.

Mason Williams is best known as a composer and guitarist. His most famous track is a long time favorite, Classical Gas. Williams worked as a comedian and writer for the Smothers Brothers and had some very strong feelings about CBS's censorship of the show. His challenges and feelings about those events show up in both this book of poetry and another that I've barely started, Flavors.

I do not think any single excerpt can possibly demonstrate what you'll find in Williams' poetry. This was a favorite, however.

LOVE POEM NO. 2

Come to me
Do not hesitate
I am not funky

Please be mine
Let our hearts entwingle
Like honeysucker

Jump around me
Scuff my boots
Fingerpoke at me

Skippy-toe by
With owl-growls
And Fa-la-la's

Love with me
All your grits
As I love you

Williams' stories about how to enjoy crackers, his cars, photographs of crazy signs and odd observations all stack up to give you a wonderful feel for the world as he sees it.

I've instantly become a huge fan. He recorded tracks around a number of the poems published. A youtube clip of him on the Smothers Brothers show performing one is below. I plan to find and listen to them all soon. I've also seen excerpts of his poems like "Them Toad Suckers" in our comments, on occasion, so I suspect our readers know a lot about Williams and these works.

I had no idea these incredible books existed and I'm thrilled to have found them.

Black Craft offers this excellent Edgar Allan Poe hoodie with a quote from his poem "A Dream Within A Dream" on the back.]]>

http://boingboing.net/2014/02/08/edgar-allan-poe-hoodie.html/feed0High-rez scan of Poe's "Raven," illustrated by Dorehttp://boingboing.net/2014/01/05/high-rez-scan-poes-raven.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/01/05/high-rez-scan-poes-raven.html#commentsSun, 05 Jan 2014 14:00:56 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=277945
The Library of Congress's website hosts a high-resolution scan of a rare edition of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" illustrated by Gustave Doré.]]>
The Library of Congress's website hosts a high-resolution scan of a rare edition of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" illustrated by Gustave Doré. The title-page is at page 11, the list of illustrations is on page 14.

The illustrations are amazing, like no other illustrated Poe I've seen. I've collected my favorites below, and there are a lot of them -- honestly, it was impossible to choose.

http://boingboing.net/2014/01/05/high-rez-scan-poes-raven.html/feed0Comic adaptation of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrockhttp://boingboing.net/2013/11/08/comic-adaptation-of-the-love-s.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/11/08/comic-adaptation-of-the-love-s.html#commentsSat, 09 Nov 2013 03:24:33 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=267262
Zack sez, "Cartoonist Julian Peters has posted nine pages of a new comic adapting the entire text of T.S. Eliot's paean to loneliness, 'The Love Song of J.]]>
Zack sez, "Cartoonist Julian Peters has posted nine pages of a new comic adapting the entire text of T.S. Eliot's paean to loneliness, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.' The adaptation plays with literal versions of many of the things described in the poem, capturing its humor and poignance. Peters will be doing more pages based on feedback, so let him know if you enjoy this one."

http://boingboing.net/2013/11/08/comic-adaptation-of-the-love-s.html/feed0Black Perl, a poem in perl 3http://boingboing.net/2013/09/24/black-perl-a-poem-in-perl-3.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/09/24/black-perl-a-poem-in-perl-3.html#commentsWed, 25 Sep 2013 01:00:56 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=257622Black Perl is a famous 1990 poem written in the programming language perl, by its creator Larry Wall. It is both a poem and a program, and runs under perl 3.]]>Black Perl is a famous 1990 poem written in the programming language perl, by its creator Larry Wall. It is both a poem and a program, and runs under perl 3.

• “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” is, among other things, a declaration of disillusionment with convention, and of liberation, of emerging from the passive seat and propelling oneself into the world to participate and engage with it.

]]>

At Poetry Magazine, TV critic Kera Bolonik answers the questions, "how does Walter White compare to Walt Whitman? And what cynical commentary on our times, on humanity, does series creator Vince Gilligan make with this subversive pairing?"

Some snippets from her answers:

• “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” is, among other things, a declaration of disillusionment with convention, and of liberation, of emerging from the passive seat and propelling oneself into the world to participate and engage with it.
•
Like Whitman, [White] is large; he contains multitudes.
•
Both are intellectual pioneers in their fields, their legacies—centuries apart—demanding risk, casting them outside of society, gliding out into the world, liberated from societal constraints.
•
Both strove for perfection in their creations.
•
Both had been teachers.

]]>http://boingboing.net/2013/08/06/leaves-of-glass-breaking-bad.html/feed0Lies I've Told My 3 Year Old Recentlyhttp://boingboing.net/2013/07/25/lies-ive-told-my-3-year-old.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/07/25/lies-ive-told-my-3-year-old.html#commentsThu, 25 Jul 2013 22:06:04 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=245178
If you want to have your guts ripped out through your eyeballs, have a look at "Lies I've Told My 3 Year Old Recently," a short, sweet poem by Raul Gutierrez (possibly this Raul Gutierrez, but I'd be grateful for correction if you know better) that has a barb buried in it.]]>
If you want to have your guts ripped out through your eyeballs, have a look at "Lies I've Told My 3 Year Old Recently," a short, sweet poem by Raul Gutierrez (possibly this Raul Gutierrez, but I'd be grateful for correction if you know better) that has a barb buried in it. Here's how it starts:

Trees talk to each other at night.
All fish are named either Lorna or Jack.
Before your eyeballs fall out from watching too much TV, they get very loose.

My favorite line is: "If you are very very quiet you can hear the clouds rub against the sky."

Update: That's the right Gutierrez; I've updated the link below to go to his site.

http://boingboing.net/2013/07/25/lies-ive-told-my-3-year-old.html/feed0Poe's The Raven as a studio exec's lamenthttp://boingboing.net/2013/05/14/poes-the-raven-as-a.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/14/poes-the-raven-as-a.html#commentsWed, 15 May 2013 01:00:30 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=230173
Torgo's parody of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven is a particularly well-done example of the genre, which has many entrants (it's the Harlem Shake of poetry!):

]]>
Torgo's parody of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven is a particularly well-done example of the genre, which has many entrants (it's the Harlem Shake of poetry!):

Turning back, I saw them seated; feeling injured and defeated
I approached and wanly greeted them: "Sylvester! Ms. Lenore!
I sincerely hope you're thriving - had I known you were arriving
I'd have sent out for reviving frappuccinos from the store;
Frappuccinos, danish pastries, and spring water from the store -
Next time, why not call before?"

The actor sat there, massive, with his craggy face impassive,
And it seemed that I'd established neither good will nor rapport.
The signs were not propitious; I thought it certainly suspicious
That he came in train with vicious, feared and cynical Lenore -
Still I leaned across the table and began to speak - "Lenore-"
Quoth the agent: "Rambo IV!"

http://boingboing.net/2013/05/14/poes-the-raven-as-a.html/feed10Automated constrained poetry, made from Markov Chains and Project Gutenberghttp://boingboing.net/2013/04/27/automated-constrained-poetry.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/04/27/automated-constrained-poetry.html#commentsSat, 27 Apr 2013 13:51:03 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=227044
A "Snowball" is a poem "in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer." Nossidge built an automated Snowball generator that uses Markov Chains, pulling text from Project Gutenberg.]]>
A "Snowball" is a poem "in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer." Nossidge built an automated Snowball generator that uses Markov Chains, pulling text from Project Gutenberg. It's written in C++, with code on GitHub. The results are rather beautiful poems (these ones are "mostly Dickens"):

http://boingboing.net/2013/04/27/automated-constrained-poetry.html/feed10Grendel as Grinchhttp://boingboing.net/2012/12/25/grendel-as-grinch.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/12/25/grendel-as-grinch.html#commentsTue, 25 Dec 2012 23:18:06 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=202830
Ross sez, "I was reading Thomas Meyer's great new translation of Beowulf when the annual showing of The Grinch came on.]]>
Ross sez, "I was reading Thomas Meyer's great new translation of Beowulf when the annual showing of The Grinch came on. The potential for a mash-up overwhelmed me, and this is the result."

Every Scylding in Heorot liked mead a lot,
But Grendel the beast, roaring outside did not.

Grendel hated Scyldings, the whole Danish clan.,
Can I say why? I don’t think I can.

He spied on the Scyldings, he fumed and he wailed.,
He watched as in Heorot they drank mead and drank ale.

Nothing says Christmas like jazz poetry, and nothing says jazz poetry like Lord Buckley's appearance on You Bet Your life.
If you only watch one 10-minute video of a jazz poet trading quips with Groucho Marx this holiday season, make it this one. Bonus: a totally unsubstantiated comment on the YouTube page says that Buckley's partner is actor Amy Poehler's grandmother.

Boing Boing is committed to bringing you your annual portion of Lord Buckley's inspirational beat poetry. Earlier this month, I posted his version of "A Christmas Carol". Now, here's "The Nazz," Lord Buckley's indispensible biography of Jesus Christ. This is all the Christmas cheer anyone needs. With this alone, we could rebuild civilization from rubble.

It's almost 10 PM in London and William Shatner is on the phone, sing-speaking the word "algorithm" to me, trying out various cadences. It feels a bit surreal.

"I love to say the word, although I don't know what it means, aside from writing a numerical formula," he reflects. "I should."

A few hours earlier I'd been drinking at the flat of my old college roommate when I got an email asking if I'd like to talk to Mr. Shatner about his new iPhone app, Shatoetry, that just launched on Friday. Megan and I went to acting school together in New York City nearly a decade ago, and the storm back home is keeping me here, where she now lives, another week.

I tell her I have to interview Wiliam Shatner and we download the app, best described as a sort of magnetic poetry assembler where every word is read in the offbeat actor's distinctive tone. We pass the phone around and assemble phrases, and from within the glass rectangle of the iPhone Mr. Shatner reads them out loud. The app says we are making "Shatisms." Megan can't stop laughing.

"These are the first reactions, and everybody is so positive, I'm delighted," William Shatner tells me on the phone I'm borrowing from the person I'm staying with, after I race back so as not to miss the call. I hang on hold waiting for him to pick up, and in the silence I feel abstractly grateful for gin and jet lag. Thanks to those things, it is just another dreamlike and unbelievable thing when Captain Kirk joins the line and says hello to me, that it's "Bill Shatner" and it's a pleasure to talk to me.

Shatoetry's the debut release for Hollywood-based Blindlight Apps, and Shatner said he loved the concept at first sight. Over the years he's been offered various opportunities to enter the app space, he says, but he was attracted to the fact he hadn't heard of a concept like this one before.

William Shatner does not buy apps. "I don't play games -- I follow directions a lot on the iPhone, and I find the nearest coffee shop. I read the newspapers now from my iPad, and I've got a Nook from which I read books."

"It appealed to the poet in me," he says, "the one that likes to write poetry, and the one that likes to speak it. It's got all the elements of things I like to do. I thought, 'I would buy that app.'"

There is a pause and he laughs and I laugh and I tell him I was kidding. He says I sound young and that it's hard to tell if someone is kidding when you cannot see their "bright and shining" eyes. Bill is a charmer.

His elocution, this gleefully-parodic Shatology -- everything about this conversation I'm having, really -- straddles some kind of line between irony and sinere enthusiasm. I ask him whether his interest in poetry and spoken-word falls into either of these camps.

"There's no steadfast belief in one or the other; it's all there," he says. "You can have blank verse, and rhyming poetry and iambic pentameter and there is all kinds of poetry... the rhythm is in the language, and it's all there for the speaking."

For some reason I tell him the friend I'd mentioned who enjoyed his app so much was my friend from acting school. We had speech classes. "So you understand," he says warmly.

For each word in the Shatoetry app, Shatner recorded three different performanes. "You can dramatize your message in any way you want... that's part of the fun of writing the message and communicating with others," he says. Multiple users (Shatner calls players "Shatoetists") can collaborate on and share poems amongst themselves

"I've been involved in all the modern means of communication, but this was totally new. To speak an idea and have it come out in, I guess, an algorithm..."

William Shatner demonstrates three ways he would like to say the word: Starkly, enthusiastically, and then with a pitchy quiver that sounds something like terror.

"There's gotta be other things out there that I have yet to imagine," he says of the future of the App Store. As for the future of Shatoetry, Shatner plans to continue recording spoken word performances to be released as purchasable content for the app.

"I'd like to tell people to get a hold of this thing," he says. "It's totally different than anything else you've seen before and we would love -- and that's Love and love and LOVE -- to have your reaction so that we can fashion the app to your liking."

http://boingboing.net/2012/06/15/poem-which-uses-all-100-scrabb.html/feed10Robert Browning's "Sordello" was not received wellhttp://boingboing.net/2012/06/15/robert-brownings-sordello.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/06/15/robert-brownings-sordello.html#commentsFri, 15 Jun 2012 16:31:45 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=166486Please read Robert Browning's Sordello and let us know if you agree with the sentiments expressed below.

Robert Browning spent seven years composing Sordello, a 40,000-word narrative poem about strife between Guelphs and Ghibellines in 13th-century Italy.

]]>Please read Robert Browning's Sordello and let us know if you agree with the sentiments expressed below.

Robert Browning spent seven years composing Sordello, a 40,000-word narrative poem about strife between Guelphs and Ghibellines in 13th-century Italy. It was not received well.

Tennyson said, “There were only two lines in it that I understood, and they were both lies: ‘Who will may hear Sordello’s story told’ and ‘Who would has heard Sordello’s story told.’”

Thomas Carlyle wrote, “My wife has read through ‘Sordello’ without being able to make out whether ‘Sordello’ was a man, or a city, or a book.”

Douglas Jerrold opened the book while convalescing from an illness and began to fear that his mind had been destroyed. “O God, I AM an idiot!” he cried, sinking back onto the sofa. He pressed the book on his wife and sister; when Mrs. Jerrold said, “I don’t understand what this man means; it is gibberish,” her husband exclaimed, “Thank God, I am NOT an idiot!”

Step Gently Out is children's picture book in which poet Helen Frost's verse accompanies the incredible garden insect photographs of artist/photographer Rick Lieder.

]]>

Step Gently Out is children's picture book in which poet Helen Frost's verse accompanies the incredible garden insect photographs of artist/photographer Rick Lieder. I've written here many times about Rick's Bugdreams photos, and they never fail to impress and move me. Lieder's photographic portraits of bugs are all the sweeter for his method, which is to patiently crouch in his Michigan back-yard for hours and hours, waiting for the shot; it's a wonderful alternative to the traditional dead-bug-on-a-pin photos I grew up with.

Frost's poem is a sweet accompaniment to Lieder's pictures, a very light narration for photos that really speak for themselves. We got this book this week, and it's a real favorite with me and my four-year-old, and has sparked many conversations and bug-watching expeditions on the way home from day-care. To this end, there's a nice entomological appendix with interesting facts about all the bugs featured in the book.

Stunning close-up photography and a lyrical text invite us to look more closely at the world and prepare to be amazed.

What would happen if you walked very, very quietly and looked ever so carefully at the natural world outside? You might see a cricket leap, a moth spread her wings, or a spider step across a silken web.

In simple, evocative language, Helen Frost offers a hint at the many tiny creatures around us.

And in astonishing photographs, Rick Lieder captures the glint of a katydid’s eye, the glow of a firefly, and many more living wonders just awaiting discovery.

For our Michigander readers, Rick and Helen will have a gallery show at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art featuring the photos, and including a signing on April 6.

]]>http://boingboing.net/2012/04/04/step-gently-out-kid.html/feed6Pentametronhttp://boingboing.net/2012/03/24/pentametron.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/03/24/pentametron.html#commentsSat, 24 Mar 2012 19:34:37 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=151130I seek iambic writings to retweet."]]>I seek iambic writings to retweet."]]>http://boingboing.net/2012/03/24/pentametron.html/feed4Nursery Rhyme Comics: Great comic illustrators do Mother Goosehttp://boingboing.net/2011/10/12/nursery-rhyme-comics-great-com.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/10/12/nursery-rhyme-comics-great-com.html#commentsWed, 12 Oct 2011 13:22:46 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=110943
FirstSecond's new Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists is one of those rare parental treasures: a picture book that kids and parents can really enjoy together.]]>
FirstSecond's new Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists is one of those rare parental treasures: a picture book that kids and parents can really enjoy together. Editor Chris Duffy invited some of the greatest names in comic illustration to choose their favorite Mother Goose classics and illustrate them to their taste.

The result is an absolute delight from the first page to the last. How can you not love a book that includes Jules Feiffer's "Girls and Boys Come Out to Play"; Lucy Knisley's "There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" (a fantastic rock-n-roll reinterpretation of the original); Richard Thompson's "There Was An Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket"; Gahan Wilson's (!) "Itsy-Bitsy Spider"; Mike Mignola's "Solomon Grundy"; Jaime Hernandez's "Jack and Jill"; Jordan Crane's "Old Mother Hubbard"; Vera Bosgol's "There Was a Little Girl"; Gilbert Hernandez's "Humpty Dumpty" and Gene Yang's "Pat-a-Cake"?

That's nothing like a comprehensive list, by the way -- the table of contents for this set my mouth watering as soon as I saw it, and the live-fire bedtime exercise has been an unqualified success. My three year old is all over this like fudge on sundaes.

FirstSecond were kind enough to let me include a selection of opening pages from the book -- click through below to get a preview!

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/12/nursery-rhyme-comics-great-com.html/feed5GOPokemon: an odd poetic quotation from Herman Cainhttp://boingboing.net/2011/08/12/gopokemon-an-odd-poetic-quotation-from-herman-cain.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/08/12/gopokemon-an-odd-poetic-quotation-from-herman-cain.html#commentsFri, 12 Aug 2011 19:24:41 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=113223
GOP candidate Herman Cain at last night's debate: ""A poet once said, 'life can be a challenge, life can seem impossible, but it's never easy when there's so much on the line.'" That poet? The lyricist for the themesong to Pokémon: The Movie 2000, recorded by Ms Donna Summer. Who knew retrogamer chic was a Republican value?

http://boingboing.net/2011/08/12/gopokemon-an-odd-poetic-quotation-from-herman-cain.html/feed11Choral work based on Robert Frost poem repurposed after copyright problemshttp://boingboing.net/2011/04/22/choral-work-based-on.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/04/22/choral-work-based-on.html#commentsFri, 22 Apr 2011 05:00:42 +0000
Boing Boing pal Andrea James writes, "Interesting backstory. The original choral work "Sleep" was set to Robert Frost's 'Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.' Then came the legal tussle.]]>

Boing Boing pal Andrea James writes, "Interesting backstory. The original choral work "Sleep" was set to Robert Frost's 'Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.' Then came the legal tussle. Eric Whitacre explains..."

After a LONG legal battle (many letters, many representatives), the
estate of Robert Frost and their publisher, Henry Holt Inc., sternly
and formally forbid me from using the poem for publication or
performance until the poem became public domain in 2038.
I decided that I would ask my friend and brilliant poet Charles
Anthony Silvestri ... to set new words to the music I had already
written.

"So," Andrea writes, "Silvestri created a poem with the exact cadence of the Frost work.
The result is this. I always love these kinds of crowdsourced art in response to these
kinds of creative disputes!"]]>http://boingboing.net/2011/04/22/choral-work-based-on.html/feed29New Shel Silverstein book scheduled for Septemberhttp://boingboing.net/2011/03/10/new-shel-silverstein.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/03/10/new-shel-silverstein.html#commentsThu, 10 Mar 2011 08:39:02 +0000Everything On It is coming this September; it's the first new Silverstein book since the posthumous publication of Runny Babbit in 2005.]]>
A new Shel Silverstein book, Everything On It is coming this September; it's the first new Silverstein book since the posthumous publication of Runny Babbit in 2005. Not much info yet, but the publisher says, "With more than one hundred and thirty never-before-seen poems and drawings completed by the cherished American artist and selected by his family from his archives, this collection will follow in the tradition and format of his acclaimed poetry classics."